"Gracious! When?"
"To-night."
"Jiminny Christmas!"
They sat and smoked and coughed. By-and-by, as if wishing thoroughly to justify their action, Nicholas resumed:
"You savvy, ol' father try white medicine—four winter, four summer. No good. Ol' father say, 'Me well man? Good friend Holy Cross, good friend Russian mission. Me ol'? me sick? Send for Shamán.'"
The entire company grunted in unison.
"You no tell?" Nicholas added with recurrent anxiety.
"No, no; they shan't hear through me. I'm safe."
Presently they all got up, and began removing and setting back the hewn logs that formed the middle of the floor. It then appeared that, underneath, was an excavation about two feet deep. In the centre, within a circle of stones, were the charred remains of a fire, and here they proceeded to make another.
As soon as it began to blaze, Yagorsha the Story-teller took the cover off the smoke-hole, so the company was not quite stifled.